


if you let me try

by Lexie



Category: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard - Rick Riordan
Genre: Cameos from the Floor 19 crew, F/M, M/M, Post-Ship of the Dead, Valhalla-typical character death (they get better)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 11:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: Magnus promised Jack a Bragi epic, but delivering it is going to be even harder than he thought. Enter: Alex Fierro and a quest to find the missing god of creativity.





	if you let me try

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plalligator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plalligator/gifts).



It takes about a month for Jack's hints about his Bragi-penned epic to escalate.

They start relatively small: Jack somehow bringing a conversation around to beards (apparently Bragi's is legendary), then "suddenly" remembering to ask about the status of his epic. Magnus saying "bragging"—a mistake he won't repeat twice—and Jack vibrating so hard against his chest that Magnus nearly drops an enormous jar of overpriced sauce all over the pasta aisle at Roche Brothers.

The hints get even less subtle with time.

"Hey," Jack says cheerfully, floating along behind Magnus as Magnus flings up his practice sword just in time to block an axe, "how do you think he'll describe my runes?"

"What?" Magnus asks, distractedly. He takes a very unsuccessful wild swing at the axe-wielding einherji, then another, frantically trying to escape her, and then a familiar knife sprouts between the einherji's eyes and she falls away from him.

"Keep up, would you, Chase?" Mallory demands as she yanks her knife back. Behind her, Halfborn is gleefully wrestling with Big Lou from Floor 401.

" _You_ keep up!" Magnus retorts weakly. It's not one of his finer quips. Mallory snorts and forges ahead, toward the last few einherjar still standing nearby.

It's Wednesday, so it's siege warfare day. Every day in Valhalla is siege weapon day, realistically, but Wednesdays are extra siege-y. Whoever it is that organizes the fight-to-the-death battle sessions—Magnus is never sure; the ravens?—set up more varieties of catapults than the production assistants on a crappy medieval war movie. The balconies surrounding the battlefield bristle with trebuchets. There are siege towers on every bit of elevated ground; when einherjar manage to take them, boiling hot pitch is usually the chaser for whoever's directly below. The air is thick with massive stones, arrows, and flying gourds.

Magnus will take Siege Warfare Wednesdays over Dragon Thursdays any day, but this is ridiculous.

There's a low, ominous whistle. "INCOMING!" T.J. hollers. Before the word's even all the way out of his mouth, a pumpkin slams into Halfborn and sends him rocketing across the field like the Nine Worlds' hairiest, most shirtless bowling ball. 

Magnus will never be able to look at Punkin Chunkin the same again.

With a flash of bone steel and a furious chittering, T.J. and Alex-the-mongoose clear the last remaining einherji out of the latest attacking band. Magnus sinks against the nearest tree trunk to catch his breath, his sadly non-magical sword in one hand and shield in the other. 

They've managed to open up the immediate area around the scraggly family of trees they've battled their way into. They're not going to enjoy that advantage for long; not with their berserker now laughing and fighting half a field away, covered in pumpkin guts. There's already another group of einherjar turning toward them. Magnus recognizes the Einarsson twins, who are deadly with a cricket bat and a field hockey stick.

Mallory's looking toward Halfborn as she wipes off her knife. "That idiot," she says. Magnus has been getting better at deciphering the tone of Mallory's "idiot"s, lately. This one, he's pretty sure, isn't actually angry.

Jack's strong suit, meanwhile, has never been finding his moment. Still floating to Magnus's left, he says, "I've been thinking, there should be at least a verse about how the jewel tones of my runes complement my hilt. You gotta mention that. Are you taking notes?"

"I might have time to take notes if you _helped me_ ," Magnus says, and he points with his very non-magical sword at the gang from Floor 256 who are advancing on them with an uncoordinated battle cry.

"No can do, señor!" Jack says cheerfully. "Practice battles are a waste of my very excellent talents!"

Alex pops up out of mongoose form. "Why," he pants, in a voice that's really more of a growl (he's covered in other people's blood and also some pumpkin guts, and that really shouldn't do it for Magnus, and yet) "won't the sword," he neatly lops the head off a howling einherji who's diving at Magnus, "stop calling you señor?"

"You know, I've never gotten a good answer on that," Magnus says, and then he yelps and jumps back as Ebba Einarsson swipes at him with her field hockey stick. She's smirking.

Multiple einherjar are going after Alex, T.J., and Mallory, but Magnus only rated Ebba and her stick.

You flyte Loki into a walnut shell and save the Nine Worlds from early Ragnarok, and still, you can't get any respect. 

As Alex kicks an einherji back into Mallory's knives, he calls out to Jack in Spanish. Magnus's foreign language expertise begins and ends with one year of truly hideous middle school French, but Alex's unimpressed tone is clear as day.

Jack's runes blink and he says, "What?"

Magnus raises his shield and vainly bashes at Ebba. She laughs, so this is going well.

"If you don't speak the language, it's weird, Jack," says Alex. Magnus can almost hear him rolling his eyes. "Pick something else."

"I can do that!" Jack says, drifting over toward Alex. "What should I call him instead?"

"What?" says Magnus, alarmed, as field hockey stick blows rain down on his shield. "No, you can just go with Magn—"

He's too late: the opening that should never have been presented to Alex has already been presented. " 'Hey you' works," he says. "Mallory's dedicated to making Beantown happen." 

"It's his name," calls Mallory, grinning.

"Nobody calls it Beantown except—agh—tourists!" Magnus objects, just barely blocking another swing from Ebba with his useless practice sword. She advances on him, still smirking triumphantly.

Alex is choking out a tall einherji. "Personally I liked the simplicity of Blond Guy, but if we're branching out— _Down!_ "

Magnus drops. There's a tremendous whoosh of air just overhead, followed by a thundering crash. 

When he raises his head, he winces. Not everybody's lucky enough to have a hair-trigger response when it comes to orders from Alex Fierro. The two-ton boulder just barely skinned over Magnus where he was lying prone and then careened onward. Ebba and her friends are gone, but so are Mallory, T.J., and—

"Alex?" Magnus calls.

There's the high, sharp cry of a hunting bird. A falcon rockets down out of the sky, but it's Alex who drops the last few inches to the ground, his denim jacket ripped at the shoulder. 

"Seriously, Jack?" Alex says, brushing himself off. "You can't even cut the occasional rock in half?"

Sure enough, Jack is still floating there with them. To add insult to injury, he's hovering at what would be the perfect height for Magnus to step in and grab his hilt. "Somebody wielding _me_?" Jack says. "That'd be one heck of an unfair advantage."

"I think it'd create a very _fair_ advantage, personally," says Magnus. "Then maybe I won't just immediately be skewered by whoever decides to go after the healer first today."

Jack twirls. "You're doing fine, Beantown! You guys have outlasted more than half of Valhalla at this point!"

"Joy of joys," says Alex. He reaches down. Magnus clasps Alex's warm hand and Alex hauls Magnus up to his feet with no apparent effort. His green hair is wild and there's blood at the corner of his mouth. If they weren't being advanced on by murderous teenagers with swords and fancy trebuchets, Magnus thinks he could stand there looking at Alex and obsessing over holding his hand forever.

It must show on his face. "Not the time, Blond Guy," Alex says, but there's a telltale quirk at the corner of his mouth. "Shield up, sword up, let's go." He turns and goes back-to-back with Magnus. 

Alex has always scorned full armor and Magnus has never had it do him much good, so Magnus can easily feel Alex breathing, his back rising and falling against his. Hopefully Magnus isn't sweating too much — but who is he kidding, that's a lost cause.

There's a moment of calm as dozens of einherjar start to slowly surround them in a wide ring. Caution isn't normally the name of the game for einherjar, but while no one's very intimidated by Magnus, everyone in Valhalla knows what Alex can do. 

Magnus can't help but feel warm, even knowing that he's about to die and then get mocked mercilessly for it at dinner. Alex is incredible, and all of Valhalla knows it. And he trusts Magnus to watch his back.

Jelani Michaels says sunnily, "Any last words, guys?" Magnus actually really likes Jelani; he's a son of Heimdall but Magnus has never seen him with a smartphone, and he plays fair in games of Twister-to-the-death.

This sort of thing is usually Alex's jam but he just shrugs, and when the silence stretches on, Magnus figures it falls to him. "You'll ... never take us alive?" he hazards.

"That's the general idea, yep," says Jelani.

"Yeah, I walked into that one," says Magnus, and then, suddenly, there's a _thwip!_ and a _thunk_ that Magnus feels shudder through Alex behind him, and Alex grunts.

Magnus looks back over his shoulder. There's an arrow sticking out of Alex's forearm.

"Glodr! We agreed we'd wait for the signal!" someone yells.

"I'm sorry, my fingers slipped!" another voice wails.

Instinctively, Magnus reaches for the warmth of his power, raising his sword hand as if he's going to reach back and touch his knuckles to Alex's arm, but Alex hisses, "Don't." 

"Fine, just give the signal," says Jelani disgustedly. "Signal! Signal!"

"SIGNAL!" the einherjar roar, and they charge.

Magnus surrenders to muscle memory; to all of the hours spent training with Sam and his hallmates so he'll be less of a liability in a fight where he can't rely on Jack. There are too many einherjar to think or to plan strategy; he blindly hacks and slashes with his sword hand and bashes with his shield, keeping his back pressed against Alex. 

Behind him, there's another telltale _thunk_ , and Alex jerks and cries out in pain.

Magnus snaps. "Jack!" he yells. Magnus can hear shouting behind him and feel Alex's back flexing as he makes Floor 256 rue the days they were all individually born, so Alex is still up on his feet and viciously fighting, but Magnus doesn't know how long that will last if the archer keeps targeting him. "What if we go on the quest to find Bragi tomorrow?"

Jack visibly vibrates. "Tomorrow? Really?"

The clanging of weapons is deafening. Magnus kicks Jelani backward and then throws his arm up just in time to prevent himself from getting speared in the face; a hot line of pain blooms in a slash along his forearm. "Can you help us get out of here faster so we can get ready for the quest?" he shouts.

"Well," says Jack, but he draws out the word, so Magnus knows he's got him. 

There's a distant _thump_ and then a low whistle, rapidly rising in pitch and volume, and out of the corner of his eye, Magnus sees an alarming orange blur growing larger by the second. He starts and staggers back into Alex hard enough that Alex begins to fall away from Magnus, and then the pumpkin blots out the sun.

* * *

When Magnus wakes up, the first thing he notices is the unfamiliar chemical smell. 

The second thing he notices is someone else's breathing.

"Are you finally up?" Alex's voice asks, and Magnus opens his eyes so fast that even the low light stings them.

It's evening in Valhalla. He's curled up in the thick, soft grass in the atrium of his suite. His head is pillowed in Alex Fierro's lap.

Magnus's brain is going to short out. 

Alex is leaning over him, hair falling in damp, unruly waves. He cleaned up, got healed, and changed into comfortable clothes while Magnus was out—he's wearing a loose green long-sleeved shirt now, and Magnus's head is resting on his pink jeans.

"Jack and I won Siege Weapon Wednesday, after you got pumpkinned," Alex says conversationally. He's holding Magnus's hand splayed open across his own chest and is painting Magnus's fingernails black, which must be the source of the sharp smell. 

"Seriously?" Magnus says, breaking into a huge grin. None of his hallmates have been the last einherji standing in an all-Valhalla battle in all the time Magnus has been here.

Alex shrugs. "Jack got banned from the arena for life."

Jack is back on the chain hanging from Magnus's neck. The pendant buzzes, and Magnus feels a dim sense of, _Told you I was an unfair advantage!_

Alex's thumb slides along the back of Magnus's hand as he moves to painting Magnus's pinky. Magnus's tongue suddenly feels thick in his mouth. He swallows hard. "So ... you decided to paint my nails?"

Alex shrugs again. "I got bored." His nails are now black, too, Magnus notices. "You've been asleep forever."

Jack buzzes proudly. _I did a lot of work, chief._

"Chief?" Magnus asks dubiously.

_I'm trying out new options!_

Alex is used to witnessing one-sided conversations with Jack, by now. He rolls his eyes like they're being rude, which, yeah, they probably are, and keeps layering paint onto Magnus's pinky nail.

"Did I miss dinner?"

"T.J. brought you a Saehrimnir sandwich."

"Oh man, I love that guy," Magnus says happily. 

Alex nudges him none-too-gently with his knees and Magnus takes the hint and sits up, helped up by a push from Alex. He turns around to face him, his legs crossed in front of him, and Alex plunks the plate down in his lap. "Left hand only; wave your right hand around, it's still drying." He demonstrates what he wants Magnus to do.

So Magnus scarfs down his sandwich, which tastes like pulled pork, with one hand, and flaps the other one back and forth to dry his new nail polish.

Alex generously doesn't ask him to converse as he's stuffing his face. While Magnus is eating tasty, tasty barbecued unidentifiable meat, Alex puts the cap on the nail polish and then flumps back in the grass.

When Magnus finishes his sandwich, he hesitates for a second, then lies down beside Alex. Together, they stare up at the canopy of the trees rising far above them.

"So you're going on a quest tomorrow, huh?" Alex says.

"Apparently," says Magnus. 

"Do you have any idea where you're going?"

"Nope," he says lightly, and Alex actually laughs at that.

Magnus turns his head to look at him. Alex has tilted toward him, his expression softer than Magnus had been expecting. "You should probably stop making incredibly stupid promises to Jack," he says. 

"Working on it," says Magnus.

* * *

In the morning, Magnus meets up with Sam at Trident Booksellers and Cafe. The bookstore's cafe is on the second story, making it the perfect spot to snag a cozy seat in the window and people-watch the crowds down on Newbury Street below.

It's still early for the tourists to be out in full force just yet, and Magnus spots Sam's green hijab right away when he jogs up the stairs and turns the corner into the shop's cafe. She already has two mugs and a big stack of books on her table.

"Hey Sam," Magnus says, shaking rain out of his hair and taking the seat across from her.

"Magnus." It's a warm greeting but there's amusement in the set of Sam's mouth as she pushes his coffee across the table to him, and Magnus stops peeling off his jacket and gives her a beady-eyed look.

"Alex texted you."

Sam breaks into a full-on grin. "My sister reports that you swore a solemn oath to start the great Bragi quest, and also that you got pumpkinned."

"I'm so glad you guys are getting closer," Magnus grumbles, and Sam laughs.

"It's useful having a spy on the inside in Valhalla," she says cheerfully. "She said the quest kicks off today; did you figure out where to start looking?"

"I have no clue," Magnus admits. "I was hoping you might, as my designated Valkyrie and wise guide to the Nine Worlds and all."

"Retired Valkyrie," Sam reminds lightly, but there's that furrow between her eyebrows that she shares with Alex, so Magnus knows she's thinking about it. "I don't know, Magnus. Bragi has always been a wanderer. Odin made him the skald of Asgard, and once, he regularly returned to Asgard and welcomed new einherjar. He regaled all of Valhalla with tales of their exploits."

"Medieval Valkyrie Vision? Righteous," says Magnus. "Why'd he stop?"

"No one knows," says Sam. "Bragi hasn't been seen in Valhalla in centuries. He's welcome in halls from Vanir to Jotun, but it's like he's avoiding Asgard."

Of course he is. Why would he visit the place that makes the most sense? That would be boring. Magnus sighs. "So what else is his deal, besides the mead and the mom in a cave?"

"He's a diplomat and a speaker of peace, and supposedly brilliant and very wise. Wherever he goes, he spreads the ideals of peace and cooperation. He's the god of poetry and creativity, and the patron of musicians."

"Hopefully he's feeling creative and poetic about a talking sword," says Magnus.

"You've got your work cut out for you," Sam says, and she looks like she wants to start laughing into her hot chocolate again.

"You mean we've got our work cut out for us," says Magnus. "How do you feel about a poetry adventure?"

The amused light in Sam's bright eyes fades into something softer. "I'm afraid my role is going to begin and end with providing historical details," she says. "School starts on Monday, Magnus."

"Already? Wow." It's hard to believe it's almost September. It feels like just yesterday that it was January and Magnus was frantically trying to throw a magical rope around the snout of a gigantic evil talking wolf.

It's been a weird year.

One in which Sam missed a lot of class, and Magnus knows she's excited for her chance to actually go to and stay in class like a normal 17-year-old, because she's a nerd who enjoys calculus.

"You're on your own this time, Chase," Sam says, smiling crookedly.

"But who'll eat all of our rations if you're not there?" says Magnus, mostly to cover how he feels about going on a quest without Sam.

"That was because I was fasting, you meinfretr," says Sam.

Magnus knows how to get his own back in this conversation. It's a tried and true formula. "How's Amir?"

Sam immediately flushes across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. "Oh, shut up. He's good. The Fadlans are talking about opening a new restaurant in Harvard Square, which Amir would manage."

He whistles through his teeth. "That's the big time."

Sam retorts, "How's Alex?"

"Violent and unpredictable," says Magnus serenely.

* * *

After they finish their coffees and he sees Sam off to the Green Line, Magnus makes a quick pitstop at Godiva for some important supplies, then he strolls down Commonwealth Avenue to the brownstone. It's a gray, chilly, kind of dismal day for August, and Magnus pulls up his hood against the drizzle. It's still hard to believe, sauntering along the mall—taking in the perfectly manicured grass, the Mercedes and Audis parked up and down the curb, the brownstones along both sides of the street, the iconic Citgo sign rising in the near distance—that Magnus actually has a legitimate claim to property here. This is the kind of place he used to hit up when he needed to break into a few cars to gather the money for a pair of boots from Goodwill. 

Okay, technically he doesn't own the house, since technically, he's dead, but Annabeth owns it for him.

Magnus gives a jaunty two-fingered salute to the Leif Erikson statue over in the park, then jogs up the front steps and rings the buzzer. Somebody with a green thumb (definitely not Hearth or Blitz, and probably long-term resident Jacob, whose eyes went huge when he saw the space for a rooftop garden) has already been working around the front door. Magnus is pretty sure there weren't any potted plants on the stairs the last time he came by.

The doorbell panel beeps, red diode flashing, and Magnus steps back so the camera can see him. He finger-spells, _Y-O_.

Huh. He really likes Alex's black nail polish; it makes his fingers stand out more when he's signing.

The light goes green and the door clicks with the _thunk_ of the heavy industrial lock giving way, and Magnus shoulders his way inside. Unexpectedly, one of the most complicated parts of retrofitting a two-hundred-year-old brownstone as a shelter for homeless teens was trying to find a doorbell that would work across five floors for both hearing and deaf residents. The eventual solution—since Hearth had a hilariously over-the-top hatred for the one that sent texts—was a system that does a whole lot of beeping and blinking.

Blitz quickly sticks his head out of the kitchen. "Kid! Did you lose your keys again?"

Magnus considers it for a second, then wiggles. He hears the jangle of keys somewhere on his person. "Nope." He lifts aside the light-blocking curtain covering the kitchen doorway and wanders in. It should look gloomy with all the windows tightly covered against petrifying sunlight, but the warm recessed lighting and snazzy light fixture (shaped like a duck, natch) fix that. 

Blitz is apparently feeling casual today—he's rocking a regular tie instead of a bulletproof cravat, and he's got his shirtsleeves rolled up and an apron on. It looks like he's making dumplings. Unusually, there aren't any kids underfoot, helping or trying to steal bites of the filling off the stove.

"Where is everybody?"

"Hearth and Jacob are upstairs," says Blitz. "Jaquana took the new kid out; they were yelling something about food trucks. That's all we've got. It's been quiet this week." 

Man. Now Magnus wants to hit up some food trucks. The one that does Vietnamese sandwiches and various flavored lemonades is unreal. "Great," says Magnus. "Since I have you alone—"

Blitz immediately puts down the wooden spoon he's been stirring the pot with, shooting him an alarmed look. "What? What's the matter?"

"Nothing! Just, you know, we can talk about Valhalla without anybody thinking we've lost our marbles."

Blitz sighs. "Balder's Bling, don't scare me like that."

"Sorry," says Magnus. "But hey, if it's quiet here now, maybe it's a good time for this. Want to come on a field trip?"

"Is this the Bragi thing?"

Magnus resists the urge to facedesk (face-counter?) into the cutting board full of rolled-out pierogi dough. "Holy Heimdall, was Alex here too?"

"Who do you think started the yelling about food trucks?" 

He sighs. "That does sound like Alex." 

Blitz gives the pierogi filling one more good stir in its stovetop pot. "Sorry, Magnus, but it's the middle of the back-to-school rush at the store."

"Do you sell a lot of clothes to kids?" Magnus asks, a little dubious but ready to be supportive.

"Hey, fashion knows no age boundaries," Blitz says staunchly. "No can do, kid; I've got to be here. See what Hearth thinks."

Magnus gasps. "Split up the dream team? Blitz! Say it isn't so!"

"Go on, go bother the elf," Blitz says, waving him off with his spoon. "Maybe he'll want to stretch his legs on a trip through the Nine Worlds."

Privately, Magnus thinks there's no way in Helheim Hearth will come along without Blitz, but he obediently trots upstairs anyway.

"And stay for lunch!" Blitz yells after him.

Hearth and Jacob are in the library on the fifth floor, sitting on opposite ends of the couch, each with a book. Jacob's a sullen, moody 13-year-old who claims not to like anyone but imprinted on Hearth like, well. Like a baby duckling. He has long purple hair and an intense passion for plants that's made Magnus wonder more than once if one of his parents is a Vanir. Magnus doesn't think so, but you never know.

Hearth glances up. He claims they're a house full of elephants, so he can always feel the vibrations as people come bounding up the stairs. 

_Hi_ , signs Magnus, and then, out loud, he says, "Hey Jacob."

"Whatever," Jacob grunts, turning a page.

Hearth gives Magnus a shrewd look, then raises his eyebrows and uses a sign that Magnus is unfamiliar with: his hands sweeping across his body, both pointer fingers beckoning. It looks kind of like two little bunnies hopping together. He finger-spells, _B-R-A-G-I?_

Magnus sighs. _Did Alex tell all Nine Worlds?_

Hearth shrugs. _At least this one._

_Want to come?_

Hearth signs the letter B with a questioning tilt to his head. Magnus knows who he's asking about.

"Back-to-school week," says Magnus, shaking his head.

He shakes his head. _Busy. I'll stay with kids._

_Who will Jacob follow if you're gone?_ Magnus agrees, and Hearth snorts.

"I know you're talking about me," says Jacob, clearly very pleased with himself, and Magnus freezes, then swears, using one of the very first signs that Hearth ever taught him. It's blisteringly filthy.

He demands, _Jacob knows ASL???_

 _Bad_ , Hearth signs. _Only knows his name sign._ He turns to Jacob, who's still watching them over the top of his book. _Magnus is dead and we stopped armageddon by talking Loki into a walnut_.

Jacob looks at Hearth blankly, then scowls. "Fine, don't tell me anything; it's not like I live here or anything," he says, getting up, and he stalks off in offended high dudgeon as somebody comes thundering up the stairs. Magnus wonders, for a second, if it's an actual elephant, but it's not — it's human-Alex who bursts through the door just as Jacob is leaving. 

"Jacob, what up," Alex says.

"Bite me," says Jacob as he walks past her, which, for Jacob, is practically sunshine and rainbows.

Magnus waits until he hears Jacob shut a bedroom door, downstairs, with some force. "Is he okay?" Magnus asks Hearth.

_Fine. Dramatic._

"He'll be back within 10 minutes," Alex predicts.

Today's Alex Fierro outfit is a battered leather jacket combined with green pants cuffed at the ankles, pristine white sneakers, and her favorite sunglasses tucked into the neck of her black T-shirt. It's a pretty simple look by Alex's usual jaunty standards, except that the whole jacket is studded with neon pink spikes. 

"That kid has such a baby crush," Alex says. She signs as she talks, in the particularly emphatic way that she signs everything. _Jacob. Hearth._ She slaps her palms together with her fingers extended flat and then, with gusto, twists her top hand. Magnus tries not to think too much about why she knows the sign for 'crush.'

Hearth rolls his eyes in disbelief, the way he always does, and lifts up his book again.

Alex plucks an apple out of the bowl in the kitchenette, then slowly spins on her heel and takes a few prowling steps, her eyes piercing Magnus. He feels like nothing so much as a prey animal being stalked. 

"Magnus, Magnus, Magnus," she says. It has the bizarre double effect of making Magnus feel both very wary and also kind of delighted, because ... Alex, that's why.

He's got it so bad.

"You're making the rounds for your poetry quest. Were you planning to ask me last? I'm _wounded_ , Chase," Alex says, laying a hand over her heart.

Magnus is proud of the fact that he doesn't sputter. "I was going to get there!" he defends. "I didn't see you at breakfast this morning!"

"I thought I was your favorite," Alex continues. "I thought we _had_ something."

"Do ... you want to come?" Magnus says.

Alex drops the act and breezily shrugs. "Eh," she says. "Sure." She sprawls across the settee, one sneaker up on the armrest. Her shoelaces are glittery.

"Oh," says Magnus evenly, as if he isn't screaming on the inside. "Okay. Great. Cool."

Alex takes an enormous bite out of her apple and talks with her mouth full. "Who else have you roped into these shenanigans?" 

"Uh," says Magnus. "Me and Jack?" The words pile up in his brain and want to come pouring out of him, but he shuts his mouth on the nervous impulse to do something stupid like say "Ta-da?" while giving Alex jazz hands.

Then Alex eyeballs him, and he breaks almost immediately.

"I mean, I can ask somebody else too," Magnus babbles, "Sam's got school and Hearth and Blitz need to stay for the kids and the store," (Hearth continues to pretend he can't see this conversation happening even though he's obviously reading lips, the traitor), "but T.J. or Mallory and Halfborn would probably come—"

"Do we need an einherji chaperone?" Alex asks, clearly amused.

"...No?" says Magnus, deeply unsure of where this is going.

"Good," she says, bouncing back up to her feet, and Magnus's heart tries to leap right out of his chest. _Good_? What does that mean? 

She puts her Buddy Holly sunglasses back on and points squarely at him as she heads for the door. "Don't be weird."

"Got it!" Magnus calls after her. "I definitely won't be weird! I'm never weird!"

But she's already gone.

Magnus looks at Hearth. Hearth looks back at him inscrutably, but with the kind of mouth twitch that means he's laughing on the inside.

Magnus sighs, aggrieved.

Hearth gets up and, as he passes, pats Magnus on the shoulder, in a move that's somehow simultaneously both a little reassuring — Hearth isn't really a casual touch kind of elf, usually — and very mocking. 

Magnus resists the urge to sigh again.

"At least I didn't do jazz hands," he says to himself.

* * *

When in need of information, Magnus has one tried-and-true move: bring Hunding candy.

The bellhop's eyes go big and misty when he sees the Godiva chocolate bar that Magnus picked up for him on Newbury Street.

"You're a good one, my boy," he says. He cradles the Himalayan sea salt chocolate bar like it's a sneak peek at a new Beyonce album. "It has pink salt in it!"

Magnus leans on his mop and very casually doesn't glance over at Alex. "Does pink salt taste different than regular salt?" he asks thoughtfully. "I've been wondering since I bought it." 

Through the nearest closed door, there's a chorus of yelling from inside the Whitewater Rafting Experience, and then another wall of water comes cascading out into the hallway from under the door. 

Hunding quickly tucks the candy bar inside his uniform and attacks the fresh puddles with his mop. Alex and Magnus follow to help him, each brandishing their own mop. "I'm going to find out!" Hunding says happily. "What was it you wanted to know about?"

"Do you know why Bragi doesn't come to Asgard anymore?" Alex asks. He's mopping a pattern that looks suspiciously like snakes.

Hunding freezes. Looking up and down the empty hallway, he hisses, "We don't talk about that!"

"About ... what?" says Magnus.

"That! The Bragi incident!"

Alex's sharp face gleams with the promise of a gossip jackpot. "There was an _incident_?"

Hunding gestures frantically with his mop even as another wave of water pours in around his ankles. "A measly few centuries ago. Don't ask me to tell the tale; I can't! If Helgi heard me talk about it..."

"Say no more," says Magnus, because seriously, he is all about thwarting Helgi. "But do you know where we might find Bragi now?"

Hunding shakes his head. Whatever this thing with Bragi is, it definitely has him spooked.

"Any known friends and associates?" Alex asks seriously. She's pretty clearly enjoying getting her best _Law and Order_ on.

Hunding stops mopping all at once. "Now that you mention it, _yes_ ," he says. "Bragi used to hang out with Frey."

Magnus straightens up sharply. "My dad? Really?"

"Did Bragi write some bangin' tunes about spring and summer?" Alex says.

Hunding blinks and says, "That's actually not inaccurate," before his face settles into more serious lines again. "Listen, you need to be careful w—"

" _Hunding!_ " Magnus never knows how Helgi manages it, but the way he's able to project his own bellows is kind of remarkable. There has to be something magical to it; his voice echoes up and down Valhalla's endless corridors.

"Go, go!" Hunding urges them, hurrying to reclaim his spare mops. "Don't let Helgi see that you were helping me!"

"Wait, Hunding," Magnus tries, but Hunding is very determined and is herding them backward down the hallway, into the elevator, with a wet mop. 

"Pray to your father, son of Frey," Hunding says darkly, and the elevator doors slide shut.

"Huh," Alex says, into the silence.

"Huh," Magnus agrees.

Neither of them hits the button for a floor.

"How're your dad-praying skills?" she asks.

"The last time I prayed to Frey, Njord showed up and got us away from Aegir and his daughters," he offers. He chooses not to mention that he also prayed for a non-yellow boat. That was a markedly less successful prayer.

"We also had to spend a lot of time oohing and ahhing over an old man's feet," she points out.

"You win some, you lose some," he says, and she snorts a laugh that makes him feel warm all over. He lives for making Alex laugh.

Magnus looks up. The only thing currently above him is the ceiling of the elevator. "Hey, Frey?" he tries. "I know we're not in a life-threatening emergency right now, and we're not at sea so Pappy can't come to my rescue—"

" _Please_ call Njord Pappy if we ever see him again," she says.

"—but I could really use some help with this quest for your old pal Sumarbrander. What do you say?"

The elevator ceiling tiles do not acknowledge Magnus's not-exactly-heartfelt prayer. Somewhere in the distance, there's the clash of swords on shields, and muffled laughter. Magnus doesn't think any of that is a sign from his dad.

"Welp," says Alex. "Plan B?"

"Plan B," Magnus agrees, reaching out and hitting the button for Floor 19.

"Do you _have_ a Plan B?" She doesn't need to sound so skeptical! 

"I actually do. It's more like a Plan Triple Z," he admits. "It's a hail mary." 

"Are you seriously using a sportsball metaphor?" says Alex.

"I don't know what else we can do," he continues.

"Literally any other metaphors would be good."

He ignores Alex, which usually you do at your own peril, but she's trolling him. "This is the last idea I've got." He could maybe check with Annabeth—his cousin knows _everything_ —but something's not right with her right now. She's been quiet and hasn't wanted to talk about it. He feels like he probably shouldn't bug her for a poetry quest that he sort of accidentally agreed to go on for his sword.

Alex folds her arms. "I do know what a hail mary pass is, Chase. Come on, what do we do to get Frey's attention?"

Magnus chews on his lip. "My mom used to say she felt close to my dad when we went camping in the Blue Hills." 

"Strategic camping," says Alex, blessedly matter-of-fact. "Got it. How long do you need to pack?"

Magnus has always wanted to go camping with Alex.

This isn't exactly what he had in mind.

* * *

When Magnus gets back to his room, everything he needs for a camping trip during an unseasonably chilly day or two in the Blue Hills is neatly laid out across the bed. He still has no idea how room service does it.

Well, almost everything. He doesn't have all the tent poles or the tarp — he's guessing room service gave some of that stuff to Alex.

Jack's been quiet today; mostly dormant and sleeping, as far as Magnus could tell. He finally pops up when Magnus pulls the pendant off his necklace as he's checking over his gear.

"Ohhh, boss!" Jack crows, happily following Magnus as he moves around the suite.

Magnus grunts as he rolls a spare T-shirt into the bottom of his backpack. "Nope, that one's definitely a veto."

"This is so exciting! You've got the epic's basic structure down, right? The rhyme scheme's gonna be everything!"

"I think I'm gonna leave that to the professionals," Magnus says. "But you can tell Bragi yourself, right, man?"

"Oh, I'm not coming," Jack says, and Magnus almost drops his firestarter.

He whirls on Jack. "Wait, what?"

"And spoil the surprise? No way!"

"Jack, it's a quest, for you! What if we have to fight?"

"You're getting a lot better with that other sword," Jack says staunchly. It's a lie, though Magnus appreciates the thought. "You know, the inferior one that isn't magical. You'll be fine!"

Someone pounds on Magnus's suite door like a freight train, then Alex yells, "Is everybody decent? Don't care, coming in," and lets herself in. She changed into her practical hiking boots with metallic pink laces, a fleece pullover and green rain shell, and thick athletic leggings, and she's pinned up her hair and secured it with a blindingly pink 1940s-style headband, twisted at the ends. Her daypack is a riot of buttons and patches, and, using safety pins, she's spelled out EAT THE RICH.

Magnus stops staring at Alex Fierro in leggings, and wheels back to point at Jack accusingly. "Jack says he's not coming."

"Isn't this trip _for_ you?" Alex says to Jack.

"That's what I said!"

"Listen, an epic by Bragi, that's a big deal! It's almost as huge as an Abba song!"

"Is getting Abba in the cards?" Alex asks, and Magnus thinks it's a genuine question.

"Something like a Bragi epic, it's gotta have some pomp and circumstance!" Jack insists.

Magnus has a bad feeling about this. "Does it have to be performed by Bragi himself at Valhalla?"

"Yeah! That's perfect!"

Standing behind Jack, Alex pulls a melodramatic "uh-oh" face, and Magnus finds himself grinning helplessly despite all his many misgivings.

* * *

"Do you really have a Zipcar membership?" Magnus asks again, shutting the trunk on the little blue hatchback.

Alex shoots him a look and, with both hands, points at the rental car that they've just climbed out of, in the Blue Hills Reservation parking lot. The car has a giant Zipcar logo on the side. Point to Alex.

He reframes his question. "Do you really have a driver's license?" He doesn't know how it'd be possible — there's no way Alex was old enough to take driver's ed before she left her awful family. Legal ID is impossible when you're homeless, and even with the resources they have now, it can be tough for a person who is technically dead.

Not that Alex ever lets little things like bureaucracy slow her down. She did somehow have phone plans ready for the trip across international waters.

"I have _a_ driver's license," Alex says cheerfully, slinging on her backpack. Yep, that driver's license definitely isn't hers. "But I'm a good driver; my friend Kate used to teach me when we'd go to the White Mountains."

More accurately, as Magnus now knows after a half an hour spent in a car with her, Alex is a very competent but also terrifying driver, one who's inclined to road rage. Then again, this is Boston — "competent but terrifying, unpredictable, and full of rage" describes everyone who was driving on 93 South.

"Could you teach me?" Magnus barely knows he's going to make the request before it comes out of his mouth.

Alex looks startled by it, too. She freezes with her arm outstretched toward the car, keys still in hand. Her mouth opens and closes, and then she finally says, "Okay." She locks the car with a chirp. "Sure. Sometime. But only in empty parking lots."

"The emptier, the better," he agrees, and she smirks.

This particular parking lot is mostly empty. Camping and hiking aren't big draws on a drizzly gray weekday. Magnus has a rain fly over his backpack and Alex lashed a tarp over hers and they both have jackets and good-quality boots, so they should be fine; they're not going too far off the trail.

"Okay. You're the expert here," Alex says, coming up to stand at Magnus's shoulder and looking out into the trees. "Where do we go to pray to Magdaddy?"

"There's this spot we used to like," he says, determinedly not reacting to 'Magdaddy.' "—Not for praying, just for camping. It's not far."

Alex gives him a broad, dramatic 'lead on' gesture; the kind of thing that Magnus associates with heroes in black-and-white movies announcing, 'Ladies first.' "After you," she says.

Within a few steps, they're under deep enough tree cover that the steady tap of rain becomes the occasional drip falling from wet leaves. There's no one else on the trail. 

There's a question that's been weighing on him.

"Did room service split the tent poles between us?" he says.

"Yep," says Alex, popping the "p." "They left me a tarp, too."

Magnus finally asks the more salient question; the one he spent half the drive to Milton sweating over: "Do we have only one tent?"

He chances a glance back. Alex is raising her eyebrows at him. "Is that a problem?"

His face is hot. He turns around again; it would be tragic and also very embarrassing if he tripped and twisted his ankle 30 feet from the parking lot because he wasn't watching where he was going. "Nope!" he tosses over his shoulder. "No problem at all!"

"Uh huh," says Alex, but she falls quiet after that, and so does Magnus.

That's one of the awesome things about being with Alex. Magnus can sit and chill with her, and drink guava juice out of a horn or watch fireworks or eat breakfast in the lounge, and it's not weird. He never—well, usually; provided he isn't psyching himself out—feels like he has to say something just for the sake of saying something. 

They hike in silence for about a quarter of a mile, until even the distant hum of traffic is gone and all Magnus can hear is the wet crunch of their footsteps, the patter of the rain on the leaves overhead, and birdsong. That's when they come around a bend in the trail and he sees the landmark: a huge boulder just beside the trailhead. "Fox Rock," he says. "We're going off the trail here."

"Fox—what?"

"Look, I was 10 and I thought it looked like a fox," says Magnus. 

Alex tilts her head as she regards Fox Rock. "It has certain fox-like qualities," she allows. For a second, Magnus thinks she might turn into a fox herself for comparison's sake, but she doesn't do it, probably because foxy Alex would immediately be squashed by her falling backpack.

She follows him as he steps between two birch trees and into the woods. Old, wet leaves and brush are soft underfoot. The air smells like damp earth. It's been way too long since Magnus has done this.

It's another ten minutes before they arrive at their destination—just long enough for Magnus to start to wonder if he misremembered the way. Then the setting sun starts weakly trying to punch through the leaves, and the trees and the brush in front of him abruptly stop. 

A massive, rotted out tree stump, slowly being overgrown by moss and flowers, is in the center of the clearing they've come up on. When he was little, Magnus's mom told him that there had once been an ancient tree here that had been struck by lightning. Even without the tree itself, the clearing always felt magical to Magnus. There's a strange, respectful hush here, like even the crickets and the birds don't want to disturb the peace. 

In a storybook—and in Magnus's actual life, probably—the old tree stump is exactly the kind of place where you'd find fairies or a doorway to another world. The clearing looks exactly the way he remembers it. 

"Wow." Alex turns slowly, taking it all in. Dappled patches of thin, fading sunlight pass across her raised face. "Did you come here a lot?"

"Practically every weekend," says Magnus, a lump in his throat. "This was our favorite campsite."

She nods with clear approval. "I get that. It's beautiful."

Alex's appreciation warms Magnus to the bone. He smiles at her—he can't not. "Thanks." He sets his pack down on a flat rock, then goes hunting for the ring of stones that mark the old firepit. He finds it swallowed up by tall grass. Apparently the Chases' spot stayed their own secret place, even after Magnus's mom died. From how wildly it's been overgrown, it can't have been touched since the last time they were here. 

Magnus kneels down and carefully touches the nearest stone. He misses his mom every day, but to be here without her, in this place where she taught him everything she knew, it feels like someone is squeezing his heart in a giant fist. His eyes sting, despite his best efforts. 

Alex crouches down beside him and lays her hand on his shoulder. He thinks she's taking her cues from him; that if he just sat here all night, Alex would, too.

He clears his throat. "It'll take a little work to clean it up, but it's a good firepit," he says, scooping out some wet leaves.

"It must be. Your mom knew her stuff, right?" Alex says, and Magnus nods, because he's like 80% sure that if he tries to talk, he's actually going to cry over the feeling of someone casually talking about his mom.

People get weird when you have a dead parent and they don't. They don't know what to say. They try to tiptoe around you, or they start trying to convince you how sorry they feel for you or telling you about their own grandmother's funeral. But Alex doesn't do tiptoeing and she doesn't do well-intentioned-but-suffocating pity, and Magnus is so overwhelmingly glad she's here, that for a second, it's hard for anything else to find space in his chest. 

With two sets of hands, it takes hardly any time at all to get the firepit ready. From there, they're a well-oiled camping machine. They gather kindling and start a fire. They put up the tent and the tarp over it, and chuck their sleeping bags and gear inside. By the time they lay down an extra tarp near the fire (you can never, Natalie Chase always taught her son, have enough tarps) so they don't have to sit on wet grass, the sky has gone dark and the stars are out. 

Magnus plunks down on the spare tarp, his back pressed against the huge fallen log that's all that remains of the old tree trunk, and Alex hands him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

"That's good teamwork right there," Magnus says, around a gooey mouthful of peanut butter.

When Alex sits down with her own sandwich, she's very close—she must be making sure she stays on the dry tarp, Magnus thinks. "Peanut butter and fire teams, my favorite kind." She tucks up close, their shoulders pressed together.

Magnus slowly realizes that there is plenty of tarp to spare and that's not why Alex is sitting close to him. 

"I'm really glad you're here," he tells her, low. "Thanks for coming."

Alex gives him the smile that makes him feel like his heart's going to stop, every time. Her expression is warm and knowing as she shrugs. "Valhalla was boring this week anyway."

"Badminton to the death wasn't exciting enough?"

"Too easy," says Alex dismissively. "I can just turn into an orangutan and waste all comers."

It sounds like that's the voice of experience talking. Magnus laughs. "Why an orangutan?"

"Have you _seen_ their arms?" she asks. "They're long as heck."

Magnus considers it, and thoughtfully wiggles his own arms. Alex snorts and does the same thing, except mocking him, and then they're both laughing and flailing like weirdos.

When the laughter dies down, they're both silent for a minute. It's so quiet out here; it's just the two of them, the crackling fire, the crickets, and the occasional mosquito to be swatted. If they climbed up to the nearby observation tower, they could see the whole Boston skyline, but from down here, the city's just a low halo of distant white-yellow noise pollution on the horizon. "So," Alex says, finally. "About the whole 'praying to your dad' thing."

"Yeah, I have no idea," says Magnus. "I'm not exactly a master pray-er. I should've gotten tips from Sam."

"Just ask," she counsels around a mouthful of peanut butter. "See where that gets you."

Magnus knows the Vanir and Aesir don't actually live in the sky, but it still feels the most natural to look up. The stars are so much brighter here than they ever are in Boston. He gets why his mom used to feel close to his dad here, sitting at a crackling fire like this one, tracing constellations.

"Hi Frey," he says. "Uh, Dad."

"Is this a private conversation?" Alex asks.

"Not from you," Magnus says, shaking his head, and Alex is quiet for a second, like that answer took her by surprise. She finally leans away from him to grab the bag of marshmallows and a long stick, which she jabs into their roaring fire.

Magnus takes that as an invitation to continue. "I know the last time I saw you, I only asked for one thing—which, thanks, by the way; the house is great—but it turns out I probably should have asked for two, my bad. And, uh, if it helps, this isn't for me; it's for your old pal Jack. Sumarbrander. Can you tell me where to find Bragi? We heard you used to be tight." He pauses awkwardly. He has no idea how to end a prayer. "And to the Republic for which it stands, amen."

Magnus stops talking. There's a breathless moment of silence. The fire crackles. An animal rustles in the trees somewhere in the distance. Frey does not throw down Bragi's location in a lightning bolt or grow it in some plants or anything.

Alex says incredulously, "Did you just plagiarize the Pledge of Allegiance?"

"I had to say it so many times in school, it just came out," Magnus groans.

She cracks up laughing. "Oh Blond Guy," she says, and she pats the side of his face condescendingly and hands him the stick. "Have a marshmallow."

* * *

By the time the fire is dying down, embers banking, Magnus has:

(1) Fruitlessly argued with Alex over the best way to toast a marshmallow (Magnus's position: turned evenly over the heat until the skin's a perfect golden brown that sloughs off in your mouth. Alex's position: jammed into the coals until it's a blackened flaming torch).

(2) Eaten a whole lot of marshmallows. YOLO.

(3) Slumped down until he's basically using the log behind them as a knobbly, uncomfortable pillow.

Alex, sitting up cross-legged, pulls her latest fiery death marshmallow out of the low campfire. "It's excellently weird sci-fi. I think you'd be into it." 

Magnus squirms until he can get his phone out of his pocket. "Who's the author again?"

"Octavia Butler," she says, and she stops watching her flaming marshmallow long enough to skeptically watch him type the name into a note on his phone. "Are you taking notes?" 

"I want to remember!" 

Her lips quirk. She blows on her marshmallow until the flames finally extinguish, then pulls it off the stick and immediately hisses with pain, but still pops it in her mouth anyway. Around the marshmallow, she mutters something gooey that Magnus thinks is probably a curse, shaking out her hand.

He instinctively reaches out, then remembers and stops himself, pulling his hand back. Alex still really doesn't like his healing, or, more accurately, the side effect of his healing. Magnus gets it. She's private.

She stops furiously chewing. She visibly considers it, then says, "Whah noh," and gives him her hand, palm up.

She scalded herself pretty good. Her fingers are already starting to turn red under a layer of soot. It must be painful.

"I can heal it, if that would be okay with you," Magnus says, glancing up at her again. "I do my best not to look, I promise."

She swallows the offending marshmallow, and they look at each other. The fire cracks and pops. The light reflects in Alex's eyes. Finally, she says, "Yeah, I know. Okay. Do your worst, magic hands."

Magnus sits up as quick as he can without letting go of Alex's hand, and he draws on Frey's power. It's especially easy, here and now; it's all right at the surface, sitting here with Alex.

"Thanks," she says. She wiggles her sooty, healed fingers at him, her hand still cradled in both of his. Their matching nail polish is chipping. "It's not about you specifically, you know. That I don't always want that."

"I know," he says. "It's cool. Got to maintain that Alex Fierro air of mystery."

Alex smiles, slow and warm, and Magnus thinks the temperature rises at least 30 degrees. His heart starts to race. Then she says, "I can't take you seriously with marshmallow on your face."

It feels like throwing a bucket of pond water on the embers of a campfire—which, incidentally, they should do soon; it's getting late. "What?" says Magnus.

She reaches out and thumbs the corner of his mouth, where, sure enough, he can feel a smudge of marshmallow goo. Now that he thinks about it, he can feel kind of a _lot_ of marshmallow goo on his face. Alex is laughing at him, her brown and amber eyes shining.

"Gods," Magnus mutters, and he tries to wipe his mouth with his sleeve, but Alex bats his hand away.

She leans in and, all at once, presses her lips to the corner of his mouth. She tastes the marshmallow spot with the tip of her tongue. Magnus's breath catches, and he holds it, swaying helplessly toward her.

Alex laughs, sudden in the stillness, and she cups his face in her sticky hands. "Breathe, Chase," she tells him, and then, completely undermining herself, she kisses him again. She coaxes his mouth open—not that it takes any convincing—and she tastes sweet, like marshmallows and chocolate.

Alex has kissed Magnus only a handful of times since the return from Niflheim, and never like this. His heart is going to pound right out of his chest, and he has no idea what to do with his hands. They hover uselessly for a minute, then he finally puts them on Alex's knees and leans in closer. Alex seems to be okay with that plan; she tugs him in with her grip on his face. 

Did she just _bite_ him a little? Surprise, it turns out Magnus is very into that.

This quest was a great idea and Magnus forgives his past self for ever forgetting to mention Jack in the flyting.

Okay, no, he doesn't, he loves Jack and he still feels really bad about it, but everything right now is very good.

They make out for long enough that the fire banks itself and Alex winds up mostly in Magnus's lap. She's grabby and he's never going to get marshmallow out of his clothes. It's definitely in his hair. Alex will probably have to cut it out; she'll love that.

Alex finally draws back enough to say, "Okay, time's up." Her headband has gone askew, wisps of green hair falling around her face.

Magnus stares up at her, dazed and well aware that he's grinning like an idiot but completely unable to stop himself. She's unearthly-beautiful and she's such a good kisser, holy Frigg. He forgot how to breathe again.

"If you can't have a normal conversation, I'm going to the pond," Alex announces with great dignity, and then she wobbles as she gets up. She rights herself, snatches up the bucket, and walks off through the trees, lighting the way with the flashlight on her phone.

Magnus laughs giddily to himself. He cheats and uses a cold splash of their drinking water to scrub the worst of the marshmallow off his face and hands and to hopefully make his face less flaming red, then packs away the s'mores supplies, kicks off his boots, and crawls into the tent. 

Alex comes stomping back within five minutes. Magnus hears the hiss of water extinguishing the embers of their fire, then the thump of the bucket. She climbs into the tent with her flashlight still lit and zips the cover shut behind her. It's a cozy tent for two people; Alex is sitting on her feet and her head is still brushing the top. She pauses when she sees Magnus is still awake in his sleeping bag.

"If I find marshmallow on my sleeping bag, you're going to regret it," she threatens, clever fingers making quick work of all the pins in her hair.

"I wouldn't dare," Magnus promises, and she makes an amused sound and switches off the light on her phone. The whole tent rustles around them as she settles down for the night. 

"Night, Alex," he says.

The wind gently buffets the tent walls. It's pitch black, but Magnus imagines he can almost see Alex's eyes in the dark.

"Good night," she says.

* * *

When Magnus opens his eyes, he finds himself standing eye to eye with a craggy face that doesn’t belong to Alex Fierro. He yells and flails back — and his hand goes _clang_ as it hits the person, much harder than it should.

It’s a statue. To be more specific, it’s one of the pair of statues in the middle of Davis Square that Magnus always mistakes for an actual little old couple until he gets closer and sees their weird sculpted faces. 

What is he doing in Davis Square?

It’s night, and it’s late enough that there’s no traffic and all the local businesses seem to be shut, even the bars. The old-school movie theater’s marquee is dark. A couple of college kids go running by across the street, laughing, and then the square is deserted again. There’s something creepy in the stillness, the trees in the middle of the square casting eerie shadows, like grasping fingers in the dark. 

Magnus didn’t come out here much when he was homeless. It was 20 minutes away on the Red Line, and if he needed some cash, marks weren’t as easy to pinpoint as they were on Beacon Hill. In Davis, that disheveled-looking person could be down on their luck or could be an artfully tousled well-off hipster. You never knew. 

“Is this a dream?” Magnus says out loud. He’s been having significantly fewer ominous vivid dreams, since Loki was defeated. It’s been very nice. 

Nobody answers, probably because it’s a dream. 

Magnus slowly looks around. A burger place, outdoor benches and tables, an ice cream shop, a convenience store, the bus stop, a coffee shop — all silent and empty. There’s a restaurant that seems to sell nothing but different varieties of oatmeal. That's new. 

The Fadlans’ Somerville shop is nearby somewhere. Maybe Magnus can get dream-falafel, since he can’t figure out what _else_ he’s supposed to be doing.

The wind picks up, rustling through the trees. It gusts through the square, picking up old straw wrappers and receipts and blowing them around in eddies until they skitter under the sandwich board still parked outside the coffee shop.

The sandwich board says, in ironic Comic Sans, _FRIDAY: POETRY SLAM. COME FOR THE COFFEE, STAY FOR THE SICK RHYMEZ._

God of poetry and creativity. “Thanks, Dad,” says Magnus, and the dream shifts.

* * *

Magnus wakes up feeling like he’s being suffocated. It takes him a second to claw his way free from — an unfamiliar fleece pullover that was on his head? He has a vague memory of dreaming that he was back in Niflheim, slowly losing feeling in his feet until it was like he was walking on blocks of ice. He shivers reflexively.

Alex grumbles behind him in wordless complaint, and Magnus finally realizes with a jolt that he’s being aggressively spooned by Alex Fierro. Alex is hot like a furnace, even through two sleeping bags and the pile of random clothes that Magnus now realizes Alex must have thrown on top of him when he started shivering in his sleep.

There's weak sunlight starting to filter into the tent and the birds are chirping, and they need to get to the coffee shop in Somerville, but Alex has an arm around him and is mostly asleep, face tucked against the back of Magnus's neck, and Magnus is toasty and comfortable and really happy. He drifts again.

The second time Magnus wakes up, Alex is having none of it.

" _No_." Alex let go of Magnus so he could get up, but has now rolled over and is refusing to leave the sleeping bag. "You kicked me _all night_."

"I know where we can find Bragi."

Alex looks up and glares at him, bleary-eyed and wild-haired. 

"Also, sorry about the kicking thing."

"Fine," Alex says, finally. "But you're lucky I like your sword."

Magnus will take it. 

He knows better, by now, than to try to launch any kind of conversation about the fact that he woke up to Alex—who's he and him this morning—cuddling him. Alex is totally nonchalant about this kind of stuff and he'll turn on a dime or tease Magnus mercilessly, which honestly Magnus enjoys almost as much as Alex does, but they don't have time for it today. At any rate, Magnus is getting better about not second-guessing or questioning things. He's learning to take things as they come, with Alex. And he likes all of it.

But he's definitely going to convince him to stop at a Dunkin Donuts in a strip mall on the way back to Boston. That's just pure logic and self-preservation.

* * *

They roll into the Davis Square coffee shop wearing their wrinkled gear. They left the backpacks in the rental car, at least, but Magnus definitely stands out in hiking boots and cargo shorts. Maybe people will think he's wearing them ironically.

"This place is college kid hipster central," Magnus says, looking around. They're surrounded by plaid in every possible color wheel, undercuts, skinny jeans, beanies, thick glasses, and, most notably, very epic facial hair. People are rocking some seriously waxed mustaches and bushy beards. Customers wander from industrial-steel-and-reclaimed-wood table to table, some talking in groups and others intent on Macbooks plastered with stickers.

Magnus and Alex join the line at the counter. The menu is handwritten on a chalkboard in a font that's so quirky it's hard to read. Magnus squints at it, skimming through vegan flourless tortes and free-range egg salad sandwiches. 

The woman taking orders behind the counter is wearing a flat-brimmed hat and a nametag that says "Sonya: SHE/HER," which is a genuinely nice touch. "Hi," says Magnus, "can I have an ... upside down iced caramel macchiato, please?"

Alex takes a long, obnoxious pull from the straw of his Dunkin Donuts cup.

Sonya-the-barista, busily writing Magnus's name on a cup and handing it over to her coworker, looks at Alex. "Great hair."

"Thanks," says Alex, effortlessly cool. He's still wearing his pink sunglasses from the car. Magnus is definitely the third wheel here when it comes to coolness.

"Hey, do you know what the poetry deal is?" asks Magnus.

"What?" says Sonya, ringing him up.

"There's—" Magnus wags a hand. "The poetry. From the sign?"

Alex takes pity on him and leans on the counter. "When does the slam start?"

"At seven," says Sonya.

"That's not for another eight hours," Magnus mutters to Alex.

"We're looking for one performer in particular," Alex says, ignoring him. "Do you know Bragi? "

"Oh," says Sonya with a strange tone, "Bragi. Yeah, he's probably out back; check the pool table." She slides Magnus's cup across the counter. It has a huge, perfectly symmetrical tower of whipped cream, topped with a neat drizzle of caramel sauce and some kind of grated spice. It smells unreal. Score one for hipster coffee shops.

Alex lifts his sunglasses up into his hair and heads straight for the back end of the coffee shop. Magnus trails behind, trying not to slop coffee over the sides of his cup. "Why is he here eight hours early?"

"He's _really_ excited about poetry," suggests Magnus.

The whole place is packed, people wandering around on the hunt for tables, but there is a wide ring of empty space around one person at the very back of the shop. He's wearing a nametag similar to Sonya's, but his name is represented by a rune and his pronouns are, in English, HE/HIM. 

He's a tall, broad-shouldered guy with a manbun, horn-rimmed glasses, and the most legendary, enormous black beard Magnus has ever seen. It's a thing of beauty— perfectly manicured along with his mustache, which has been waxed to curl up at the ends. He's wearing jeans so skinny they look painted on and he's got a full sleeve of tattoos up and down both (jacked) arms; runes, bars of music, and watercolor figures so realistic that they almost seem to shift and move in the light.

Buff bearded hipster god isn't Magnus's personal jam—he's extremely partial to lanky, gorgeous einherjar with green hair who rock a mean garrote—but he's so hot that Magnus's mouth goes a little dry.

He's also pacing and muttering to himself.

"Hedge— vedge?" he's saying. He yanks at his beard. "No, no!"

Magnus shoots a wary glance at Alex, but Alex is already stepping forward. "Ledge," he suggests.

Bragi whirls to face them, pointing at Alex with excitement. Being the focus of his attention, even peripherally, is kind of overwhelming — dude has serious presence. "Yes!" he cries. "Dust it all with lemon Pledge, mankind sits upon a _ledge_!"

Alex's eyes widen a little. "Happy to help?"

In this moment, Magnus misses Sam and Blitz. They would both know how to properly, formally greet the god of creativity and poetry. 

Magnus goes with what feels right. "Lord Bragi. S'up?"

"S'up," Bragi repeats. His voice is deep and smooth. It's the kind of voice that's made for recitation and the stage, and fancy chocolate commercials. "Cup? Sup, _without_ the apostrophe!" He starts pacing again, wheeling back and forth.

"What _is_ this?" Magnus asks out of the side of his mouth, watching Bragi work himself into a tizzy.

Alex has crossed his arms over his chest. "Slam can be sublime. That was trash. What the Helheim is that rhyme scheme? _Lemon Pledge_?"

"That's Bragi for you," says a person sitting at the table next to them. "Just the nicest guy, so sweet, comes every Friday to workshop new stuff, but holy hell is his flow sick."

"Sick in the _bad way_ ," says their companion in plaid flannel, like Alex and Magnus hadn't noticed.

Magnus lowers his voice. "How is that possible?"

Alex gives him a dramatic 'how should _I_ know?' shrug.

"He's the skald of Asgard. He's literally the god of poetry!"

"Odin should have named me the skald of heinous poetry!" Bragi wails, apparently listening to their conversation. He throws himself down at the nearest table and slumps with his head in his hands.

No one else around them even blinks. Everyone in here must be really used to weird, mostly-rhyming outbursts at this point. Still, to be safe, Magnus walks over to Bragi's table instead of continuing to yell across the pool table. "Is _that_ what your problem is?"

"You heard it," Bragi moans into his hands. "It's hideous."

"It really is," Alex agrees, standing over him.

"It's — it could use some work," Magnus allows. "But maybe you just haven't had a worthy subject in a while."

Alex modulates his voice like he's a game show announcer. "And boy, do we have one for you! He slices, he dices, he sings Katy Perry!"

"It's Sumarbrander, the legendary Sword of Summer," says Magnus, because he can see Bragi zoning out; they're already losing him to tortured rhyme schemes again. "He goes by Jack now, though."

"Ah, Sumarbrander! We had many a wild night together, Frey and Sumarbrander and I," Bragi says, staring off into the distance nostalgically, and okay, yeah, Magnus is gonna nip this conversational gambit in the bud right quick. Why do people keep coming back to this?!

"Yeah, and he's really great, just the best, so we're hoping you'll write and perform an epic about him."

Bragi slowly lowers his hands to the table. "Hmm," he says. "It's been so long since I've written an epic. And Sumarbrander — there are certainly tales to be told."

"He flew up a giantess's nose and killed her, this spring," Magnus says helpfully. "And he hogtied Fenris Wolf. He's got so many new epic-worthy adventures for you to poetry about."

"A giantess's _nose_ , you say?" Bragi asks, intrigued.

"Yep, great nose stuff," says Alex. "You just need to write it and come perform for Jack and all the einherjar in Valhalla."

Bragi stiffens with alarm, and immediately starts shaking his head. "I can never return to Asgard. It's the site of my greatest shame!"

"People can't keep referencing that without explaining what happened," Alex complains. "It's cruel and unusual."

"Once, I could have told the tale in verse," Bragi says sadly. "Alas, no longer. Suffice to say, I awoke one morning and my words were utterly gone."

"Who cursed you?" Magnus says. He bets it was Loki.

"None," says Bragi. "It was," he takes a deep, sustaining breath, " _writer's block_."

Magnus feels like he's supposed to react, so he gasps, late. Alex rolls his eyes and sits down at Bragi's table.

"I tried to continue on, but that night—" Bragi shakes his head, his mellifluous voice growing thick. "The epic that I attempted to recite, about Odin—" Words fail him, apparently; he raises his fist to his mouth and bites his knuckles.

"Odin is, like, never around anymore. We haven't seen him in forever. He's really into his Powerpoints these days," Magnus says, a little desperately.

He bows his head. "I regret, I cannot." Tears begin to stream down the beautiful face of one of his mermaid tattoos. Magnus is concerned that the man himself is going to start crying, too. 

Alex loudly finishes off his iced coffee. "Well, this was a bust," he says, getting up out of his seat. "You'll just have to tell your dad Bragi can't hang anymore."

"What?" say Magnus and Bragi together. Alex makes laser eyes at Magnus over Bragi's head.

"—Yeah, it's a shame," says Magnus. "After good old Dad helped us find him and everything. Oh boy. This sure is disappointing."

Alex sounds much more convincing than Magnus does, Magnus suspects. But Bragi is watching both of them now. "Who is your father?" he asks.

"Frey," Alex tosses off casually. "Come on, Magnus; let's get back to Valhalla."

He tosses his empty coffee cup in a long, clean arc into the nearest trash can, then grabs Magnus's hand and starts towing him toward the front of the shop.

They don't even make it two tables before Bragi cries, "Wait!"

While they still have their backs to Bragi, Magnus gets to see Alex's triumphant smirk before he schools his expression as they turn around. Magnus wants to make out with that smug face so bad. 

Bragi is watching them closely. "What business does a son of Frey have in Valhalla?" he asks.

"It's a long story," Alex says. "The kind of thing that'd be great material for an epic, probably."

"No epic," Magnus says hurriedly. "The real story here is Jack, not me." He can't make the mistake of leaving Jack out twice.

Alex pinches the back of his hand, hard. "But Jack is the key in the tale of how you wound up in Valhalla instead of Folkvangr."

That's ... true, actually. "It's a pretty wild story," Magnus says, which is also not a lie.

"Hmm," rumbles Bragi, his face screwed up with thought. "Perhaps, all this time, I have only lacked the proper inspiration." He slowly begins to rise from his chair. "A new tale for a new era of heroes; a sword and his boy—"

"Huh, taking it to kind of a weird place," Magnus says.

"Rise together, against all odds, to the Hall of the Slain in Valhalla," Bragi continues. "Yes, yes! This can work!"

Magnus's heart soars. They're actually going to pull this off. Then he corrects himself: Alex, and also the sheer luck of who Magnus's dad is, is actually going to pull this off.

"I'm glad you agree," says Alex, and Magnus nearly jumps out of his skin before realizing he's talking to Bragi. "Magnus can stay here and fill you in on all of Jack's most heroic adventures, and..." he wrinkles his nose, "I don't know, something about his runes? I honestly stop listening whenever that starts."

"They're jewel tones and they complement his hilt," Magnus recites dutifully.

Alex turns to Magnus. "I'm gonna return the car, and also go do other things because my life doesn't revolve around you."

"Ten-four," says Magnus. "Can I walk you out? Just for a second?"

"If you must," he says.

Bragi gives a delighted cry and whips out an iPad. "Hilt, gilt! This is a classic already!" He starts tapping furiously.

Magnus walks Alex to the door of the coffee shop, then pauses. Alex raises his eyebrows expectantly.

Hopefully there are enough customers and space separating them from Bragi now that he won't hear Magnus rag on him. "Two things. One: what if it's bad?" Magnus says, low.

"Oh, it's gonna be _real bad_ ," says Alex. "But you promised a Bragi epic, and you're delivering a Bragi epic."

"Okay, two: you're the most brilliant person I've ever met," Magnus tells him.

He snorts. "I met your cousin, Chase."

"Totally different, I stand by what I said. Holy Helheim, Alex. That was incredible! You're a genius."

"Are you done?" Alex says, but there's a dusting of color across his cheeks and he looks pleased. "I have things to do today."

Magnus has never kissed Alex before (he's always been the kissee, not the kisser, which he has no complaints about), but he doesn't let himself second-guess it. He leans in and softly kisses Alex, just long enough that Alex lifts a hand to his shoulder. Magnus wants to _keep_ kissing Alex, then, but that would probably be weird, standing in the door of a very busy coffee shop. Magnus reluctantly draws back. "Thanks. Go make other drivers cry."

Alex grins like a shark. 

It's all the more convincing because Magnus has seen him actually _be_ a shark.

* * *

Magnus thinks this is the most nervous he's ever been to go to dinner, and given that dinner can be a violent affair in which einherjar fight to the death over the choicest seats, that's really saying something.

When he got back to Valhalla after a long, exhausting prep session with Bragi, Magnus found his hiking backpack outside his bedroom door. There was no sign of Alex for the rest of the afternoon, but then, at dinner, Alex suddenly appears out of nowhere, shoving Sam into the last empty seat at their table and then dragging up another chair.

"Hey!" says Magnus, as greetings roll around their table. Valkyries swoop overhead, dropping off platters of food and goblets full of mead. Magnus, personally, is already destroying some delicious vegetarian falafel left-flank.

"Alex said dinner tonight is going to be a must-see," Sam says, trying to fix her hijab. "She's being very mysterious." Sam is hilariously windblown while Alex is neat as a pin, which is an uncharacteristic twist, and Magnus has a mental image of Sam clinging to the neck of a horse with one brown eye and one amber eye while galloping down Beacon Street. 

"Did you two actually find Bragi?" Sam asks.

Magnus's hallmates have already heard most of the tale. T.J. opens his mouth.

"Don't tell her!" Alex insists. "Don't ruin it! Let the moment happen naturally!" 

"They found him!" Jack exclaims, spinning with glee. "He's going to perform any minute now!"

"You ruined it!" she says, pounding her fists on the table in protest, fork in one hand and knife in the other.

In almost the same moment, as if Alex started a chain reaction, the thanes begin whacking their cups on the high table. The einherjar all join in, though Alex, Magnus notes, opts to continue banging her fists and utensils instead of picking up a goblet.

"Warriors!" Helgi roars, standing beside the head table, and the cup-banging dies away, except for those two jerks (there are always at least two in a crowd) who are competing to be the last banger. That goes on for about 10 seconds, until there's an "Urk!" from somewhere in the massive horde of einherjar and the banging abruptly, ominously stops. "Tonight, a very special event — Lord Bragi has returned to Valhalla!"

A roar goes up, and the Hall of the Slain echoes with the enthusiastic banging of cups. 

"He is here tonight to deliver his first epic in three centuries, due to the efforts of Magnus Chase, son of Frey, and Alex Fierro, child of Loki."

Magnus, knowing what's coming, kind of wants to sink down in his chair. Alex, on the other hand, sits up straight and starts giving the Miss America wave to the ten thousand faces now turned toward them.

"Without further ado, Lord Bragi." Helgi gives a completely ridiculous bow, and Bragi strides up in front of the thanes' table. He looks exactly the same as he did in the hipster coffee shop, so points for knowing his aesthetic and also for beard and mustache maintenance.

" _That's_ Bragi?" Mallory says.

"I need more tattoos," says Halfborn, awed. "Look at those!"

"Einherjar!" Bragi cries. 

"I am here today before you  
and before the wise and learned thanes  
to tell you a story of a true and loyal friend  
whose cutting edge remains ever-sharp,  
and where he traveled, and who he met,  
and how his bravery vanquished the Ship of Nails."

It takes a supreme effort to look away from Bragi, who's blazing with confidence and the promise of a life-changing story to be told, but Magnus glances at Alex Fierro. She's staring down at Bragi standing firm in front of the thanes' table. His strong voice fills every corner of the hall. You could hear an arrow drop.

"Is this ... good?" Magnus whispers.

"Shut up," says Alex, which Magnus takes as a 'yes.'

"It doesn't even rhyme!"

" _SHHHHH!_ " Jack hisses, his runes shining like fireworks. 

"Let me tell you of his great love who was lost to him,  
she of the pen cap and the razor-sharp edges—"

Jack sobs.

Magnus pats his hilt.

* * *

"I can't believe he had writer's block for hundreds of years and all he needed was Jack," says Magnus, stunned, as einherjar roar a standing ovation all around them.

Alex leans in close and shouts above the din. "What did you _say_ to him?"

"I just told him what happened! I don't know how he got _that_ out of it!"

Bragi's voice is somehow booming over Valhalla's deafening appreciation. "Thank you, thank you; you're the finest of audiences, Valhalla!" Jack is up at the thanes' table beside him, still wagging up and down as they bow together. He's ecstatic. He's going to be singing for days; for weeks.

This went better than Magnus even thought was possible.

He looks at Alex again. She's laughing incredulously, taking it all in, but he catches her eye and she turns to him. She grins wildly at him, face bright with mischief, and says, "Next time we find a garbage slam poet and drag them back to Valhalla to perform an epic about somebody, it's my turn."

Magnus could write an epic for Alex Fierro all by himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Abba for the title inspiration. :) Also thank you to the inestimable [SVZ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/svz) for the beta. 
> 
> Happy Yuletide, plalligator! I loved your prompts and all of your _Magnus Chase_ feelings!


End file.
